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148739-boss-hunter-challenge-rewards
Page 1, Page 2 Content ---- ---- ---- I expected ... Higher loot chance and more options to get NEW rewards. | |} ---- Explanations, Carbine, pretty, please? Edited January 7, 2016 by Shakyntani | |} ---- ---- ---- why would they give those new rewards out so easily? I didnt bother to buy anything in the cash shop until its for content i enjoy and im not a fan of f2p anyway. people have to wake up and realise that f2p cost them more than the previous 10€/month and the focuss of the devs is on the cash shop now and not quarterly updates with new zones, etc. Obv they still work on new content but lets say they need 25000 hours to create,test and release high quality, new content and with all the events they have to put time into with the main purpose to create new skins to then sell them in the cash shop (since this is how the servers keep running), those 25000 hours will not be reached as fast as before with the same staff, which then leads to people leaving (cuz lack of content) or creating even more gapfiller content to keep at least a base amount of people logging in. and back to the topic if people got what they wanted easily they would play the game even less. see rune system, crafting system, alt-friendlyness etc. Edited January 7, 2016 by furoflo | |} ---- Atm, the keys (you need them to get the Random-Reward-Boxes) don't drop and you have to buy them. That's why everyone is upset. Maybe they'll fix it or it's working as intended. Edited January 7, 2016 by Faara | |} ---- If I may dare a wild guess, I think that whoever constructed that rather clumsy sentence meant for "along with" to refer to "turn in", and not "drop". However, even that is not quite true either, as I understand these lockboxes to work (correct me if I am wrong). | |} ---- Sry for this stupid comment but: I'm a siganture member and I'm paying 12€ a month :P | |} ---- thats fine andy, everyone is stupid now and then :p | |} ---- ---- It's not about "easy". It's about paying money to enjoy rewards earned in game. | |} ---- It's the parenthetical that is super weird, saying that the keys are normally only available for NCoin or Omnibits, when that's *still* the only way they are available. | |} ---- It's working as intended, as already is clarified by Carbine (you have to buy the keys). | |} ---- ---- omnibits? but yea i get it. sucks to not be able to work for something and in the end get it and to rely on rng (or more money). I dont know what people find so interesting to spend so much in the shop but whatever they like. after all they keep the game alive even tho its in a coma and one should consider unplugging live support. | |} ---- Omnibits? Those things you farm for a month to buy a single key? | |} ---- ---- ---- i dont farm those they are just there and from time to time i buy rune tokens edit: well i bought rune tokens but beeing BiS forever now with no new content there is really nothing to spend omnibits on (for me) Edited January 7, 2016 by furoflo | |} ---- Couldn't have worded it better myself. But hey, F2P was going to save this game, right? | |} ---- ---- I've gotten a single key from some other source, don't recall now it it was a daily log in or a signature reward. | |} ---- Signature reward. | |} ---- ---- Yeah, it's not usually this bad. The last "event with gamble boxes" didn't require you to do more than just go to the cash shop and buy them if you wanted the chance at what they had. That was okay. Maybe a little cruddy because some of the rewards were AWESOME but most were just decor. But Crabine was honest about it. "Buy These for a Chance at A Great Reward! But You Still Get Something Decent Even if it's Not The Awesome Thing." This ain't like that. You can farm the token, buy the key and still end up with High Rune bits, chump change in gold or freaking Iron Ore. I mean, ORE?!?!?! FOR MONEY?!?!? Edited January 7, 2016 by Tex Arcana | |} ---- And unlike in STO, you can't sell the keys, for more "fun". | |} ---- ---- ---- This. Right here. This is the NUMBER ONE REASON why this "event" sucks. This isn't even an event. It's just a Cash Shop Lockbox Key Sale wrapped in the skins of slain World Bosses. | |} ---- A perfect summary. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- And now is worth over 600 millions, you got a 1 in 292 millions to win it, I think it is better than the RNG here that is around 1 in a gazillion. | |} ---- I got 5 service tokens. For the same price as a key i would get 30 service tokens..... | |} ---- But it was FUN right? RIGHT?!?!?! | |} ---- ---- That's all I wanted, too. Just put it on the freaking cash shop, already. Heck, I'll buy two of 'em and give one to Xiun! :lol: Edited January 7, 2016 by Tex Arcana | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Yeah. I was really, really, REALLY trying to maintain a positive outlook but the more I look, the more "out" I want to be. | |} ---- ---- Only if RNG loves you. :lol: | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Same. I think the only one I'm missing is gamescon at this point. I have 4 more coins that I'm gonna cash in (ugh) but if no dye at that point then it's gonna be 2 dyes *shrug*. EDIT: 2 runecrafting bags and 2 bags of gold :\ gg no dye for me. Was lucky I had some spare ncoin and omnibts to open the boxes I did, but im not putting in anymore for this. Just.... so disappointed. Edited January 7, 2016 by Xiun | |} ---- ---- Legislation hasn't yet caught up with this at least not in the US. I've heard some other locales (maybe in Asia?) started making noise about regulating these practices. | |} ---- ---- Gambling for money is, holding a raffle for a bakesale is not. I'm pretty sure we can all agree that this event is more like the latter given the type of rewards gained. :P | |} ---- ---- Pretty much every F2P MMORPG has them because as much as we may hate them enough of us buy them to make it worth their while to keep doing it. The way I deal with it is that the instant I see some variation of the phrase "lucky box", I simply tune the rest out. I won't be participating, so it's irrelevant to me what's inside. | |} ---- | |} ---- ---- ---- Actually, it's been said by other players that we can also (though seldomly or with difficulty) get keys from Protostar bags and I believe by dinging level 50. But please continue reading the minds at Carbine and divulging their darkest intents. It seems that ESP is popular these days with gamers... | |} ---- What is ESP? | |} ---- | |} ---- Extra sensory perception. Spooky mind powers. Psychic. It's where the Esper class get's its name. ESPer. Edited January 7, 2016 by Atomicpanda | |} ---- ---- ---- Pretty much my fear. I'm watching the SW:TOR powerdive into the Death Star from the sidelines (it's quarterly report bad) and I'm getting that same vibe here (edit: Paniced what can we sell quick response, not the powerdive :lol:) I'm hoping and praying it's them trying to figure out their market. But c'mon! Cash-shops and F2P have been around long enough that even short-bus economists should be able to suss out what works or not. I suppose pulling an FF14:ARR and making a game that works reasonably well is just too radical an idea for the squeeze blood from rocks crowd. Edited January 7, 2016 by PlasmaJohn | |} ---- ---- ---- You and me both. At first I was excited about this event. Figured it would be a good time to level my alt that's into cute loppy / auriny items. A lopp grinder? How great would that be? But, now, this "event" is dead to me. Even if I get one of these lockbox tokens it's going in the trash. Not going to spend money on a key to potentially get crap like iron ore. That said, if the lockboxes were on the cash shop, like the Space Race ones were, I would have bought a few. I don't like RNG boxes, but if they're cheap I'm known to try my luck a bit. Didn't get the music I wanted from the few Space Race boxes I bought, but I did get some decor I like and plan to use. If these Boss boxes were similar you'd have got some more money from me. Now, no. I mean, I'm not done giving you money, but I'm not going to give you money for this. As a wise man once said, “You gotta draw the line somewhere! You gotta draw the #@&%in' line in the sand, dude! You gotta make a statement! You gotta look inside yourself and say, 'what am I willing to put up with today?' NOT #@&%IN' THIS!!” | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- But, i think the thing is there's a right way and a wrong way to do RNG boxes. GW2 is a good example of a good way of doing it: Even if you don't get the top prize, you're still likely to walk away with a couple useful items: portable merchant, free repair, a token that can be traded in for a weapon reskin when you collect enough, etc. Each also guarantees at least one booster (eg +50% exp for 2 hours, +50% chance of finding better loot for 2 hours, etc.). You might not get what you were hoping for, but at least you still feel like the key wasn't wasted. You know what I got opening up one of these Shiny Lopp Chests? A common dye. And that was with the same key, by the way, that I could've used to get a guaranteed dungeon-quality loot item. This event hasn't made keys more worthwhile to buy. It's just added a way for you to get significantly less from your key than you would if you used it normally. I sort of give them the benefit of the doubt since I see no benefit for them being intentionally misleading. And I might've said that in the past to defend Carbine, but I think as time goes on, I think the picture we're seeing develop is worse: the left hand has no idea what the right is doing. We've had events where the advertised rewards ended up being store-exclusive, event-related items pulled before the event ended, the wrong items being advertised as part of the event, items being available on the wrong days, discounts added days after items were added to the store, etc. Double-xp weekends aside, I don't think we've had an event yet that hasn't been accompanied by some sort of screw-up due to poor communication. I'd take intentional deceit over repeatedly being unintentionally mislead. The former at least means they know what they're doing, but the latter is just someone dropping the ball over and over. The former might upset people, but the latter does that in addition to slowly chipping away at people's confidence and trust. | |} ---- I guess that "And More!" actually meant "A hundred items already in game that aren't useful for anything at all or even that hard to obtain in the first place! Wait, we can't say that, can we..." Edited January 7, 2016 by Ildur | |} ---- In F2P's remake of the itemization, they became much more strict when it comes to the different tiers of end game content and their reward. (Something that had effects such as making crafting not very worthwile, and making the rest of the game not very interesting once you have raid gear.) I think it is the same thing here. Somebody decided that the event's world-boss zergs were casual-level content, and thus we get casual-level rewards - i.e. open-world-challenge lootbags, or daily login rewards. The base content of these bags seems suspiciously close to those. Edited January 7, 2016 by Tuft Meadowgrass | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Why would they give us free cash shop items + cool rewards + the glory and dropbox from the boss, all for easy mode 2 minute kill bosses? I think a lot of people didn't think through their own expectations. | |} ---- Sounds reasonable to me. In fact, Madame Fay is a close match for this event's loot design: A few cool epics, but also a bunch of common green stuff nobody wants, and purchasable unlock. The difference there is that we don't have to farm boxes, and even if we do get a bad run, her meter fills to eventually grant a decent reward. Seems rather silly to run an event that has an inferior outcome to one that's been around for months now... ~however~... I'm not convinced that this is merely a 'cash grab'. I think promoting WB kills to improve community feel, activity, and even flush out the economy with more decor, are all good outcomes that could justly be credited to the designers of the event. Edited January 8, 2016 by EsperXIV | |} ---- ---- Here's the deal. First, their description of the event was poorly worded, at best, deliberately misleading, at worst, leading many to believe that this was not a cash only event. Second, for those who do spend the money to open the boxes, the boxes have a high chance of containing straight up garbage. These aren't like Space Chase boxes that all have something somewhat good and event related. They're trash bags with a low chance of something worthwhile. That's what people are on about. I doubt anyone here is mad that the game is trying to make money. I'm not. I want the game to make money. People are mad because it seems they told us one thing and then did another, and made it out that the lockboxes were event themed when they're really just garbage boxes with a rare chance at some event items. If they had told us these things right from the start people wouldn't be so pissed. They wouldn't have gave a crap about the event, but they wouldn't be as mad. This is the MMO equivalent of a dollar on a string. | |} ---- Eh, I don't buy it. People are tossing around all sorts of complaints, some are reasonable to me, but others are worthless conjecture. Also, the wording of the primary post was clarified the same day the post was made, before the event started, and the boxes themselves clearly state that you need a key with it before you can turn it in, which suggests that in fact there was no plot to mislead and milk people (unless you want to put on a tinfoil hat and claim they went in and edited it early this morning). Plus, ya know, it makes zero sense that they ~would~ choose to mislead people. To what end? Everyone was bound to realize you need to buy the key as soon as they tried to turn in their first box. Nope, it makes zero sense. And my main point in the quoted post is that— although I agree the initial wording was a fail— people who didn't read the clarification or think through the implication of expecting 4 free things from a simple 2 minute encounter, are equally to blame for their great disappointment. The size of this fail is not proportional to the degree of hate... though the number of people criticizing doesn't surprise me. | |} ---- It doesn't matter how big the *cupcake* up was. This just adds onto Carbine's year long list of *cupcake* ups. | |} ---- ---- ---- Agreed, it was implied and lots of us asked for (and got) some clarification. In the end it seems that pretty much everyone agrees it's a PR fail, and yea that's happened before, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water on this one. :P I'll stop defending on this topic now but I just wanna note that, as a pretty casual combat player (I mostly build) I was super happy with the results of this event aside from the key thing and wording. I have like 20 useless Shiny Tokens in my bag cause I'm not gonna endorse the keys, but I also got a lot of normal WB stuff I wouldn't have had the patience to farm when it can be 20+ minutes for pap farming otherwise. 1 big weapon upgrade 1 helm upgrade 5 costume pieces 11 epic decor (with only two doubles) strain-corrupted ravenok pet 4P crapload of mostly useless runes xD From about... 2.5 hours of farm, split up across the day. That's pretty damn good in my book! | |} ---- ---- ---- Had they framed this as 'double WB weekend' with nothing additional I think this would have been counted as an awesome event. Instead they've just given themselves several festering black eyes. When a company stoops to predatory monetization practices it's time to call them on it. At the very least they owe us a sincere apology. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- It means it was intended and it also means GG corporate commander won | |} ---- I don't think they should do that, actually. I think that would be a TERRIBLE idea. But I'm not the one who makes events. But they worded the event post like idiots. Really, go read the thing. And it requires cash shop action to make the new reward do ANYTHING. As to what they SHOULD do? Also, allow people to trade... what, 5 shiny tokens for a lockbox key? How about that, 6 world bosses for a single Lopp box, or stock up on keys. WBs go fast, but it's like 5-10 minutes for each, so we're talking about a half hour per 5 tokens at best? For a weekend-long event, that'd be sustainable, and people couldn't/wouldn't stockpile TOO make of the things. And make the Lopp boxes ALWAYS drop something good. If they can drop high runes and 5 service tokens, the loot table was designed by an idiot. | |} ---- getting 5 service tokens sounds better to me than a color. just saying ;) yea. if it wasnt obv until now they showed who makes the decision in this game since f2p. Edited January 8, 2016 by furoflo | |} ---- ---- They already clarified the keys were never intended to be on the loot table. | |} ---- ---- Be in a group on the kills. Then, you will get the tokens and other drops. | |} ---- Carbine is located in the US/Pacific timezone so you cannot reasonably expect them to respond outside of 9am-5pm PST. The lockbox key clarification was timely if poorly socialized. Anything else would be subject to some lengthy policy discussions. My expectation is that we'll get radio silence, well other than a chipper "We're discussing it!". My unreasonable hope is that somebody from CRB will do an event post-mortem with the community. | |} ---- But it seems most of the vocal forum group didn't bother reading the rest of the page, or checking the dev tracker, or reading the Shiny Token text in-game, or pausing for a moment to consider whether their expectations of this event were realistic (which might have led them back to look for the clarification that was given). Some of the criticism has been great but most of it has been overblown and sometimes straight-up rude/lying. I wouldn't give this turd minefield the time of day. But I expect someone or other at Carbine will have to come appease the crowd with a formulaic response before the weekend is up. Edited January 8, 2016 by EsperXIV | |} ---- ---- I'm not arguing that you're wrong about requiring players to both run content + buy from the cash shop, it seems flakey to me at best as well, but there is precedence that nobody I know of complained about: When F2P hit and the keys first appeared they were meant to be used to open lockboxes at the end of Adventures/Dungeons. As far as I know (please correct me) this was their only use, and the design intent there was exactly the same as the design intent here. Promote farming old content, but lavish extra rewards (on top of the base rewards for completion) upon those who buy keys. And the Adventure/Dungeon boxes were also RNG-based, although (and this is an important note I think) to my recollection there were no poopy rewards like an RNG gold drop. Back then I remember thinking that the decor NPC drop rate was high enough to justify this design. In my mind I was paying $1 for an NPC decor and that was reasonable, so I got a bunch of friends, bought a bunch of keys, and we went and farmed totem rush. It was rather fun and very productive, and that's why I have my 50 Special limit capped out today on the AnNex plot. So basically this isn't without precedence, and again, I don't remember reading any complaints about that design though I do know a ~lot~ of people got involved because the NPC decor flooded the market. In the end the miswording and poop rewards in the Lopp boxes seem to be the distinction between success and failure. The concept of farming then paying extra to unlock extra goods does not strike me as intrinsically bad after reflection, as some others are pointing out, as long as the rewards are somewhat predictable and worth the money spent. Example: NPC decor are now becoming quite rare and expensive again, since people aren't running Adventures/Dungeons as much, and probably aren't so willing to buy keys. But when Sim Chase hits next week it'll be a great opportunity for builders like me to buy some keys and farm up a bunch more NPCs for our plots, while also benefiting from the Sim Chase rewards. In that context, I think the design is going to work very well and will make me a happy camper. Hopefully others will get some joy out of it as well. Edited January 8, 2016 by EsperXIV | |} ---- I haven't seen any overblown criticism or lying. TONS of people came to the same wrong conclusion about this event, so don't go on about "bother to read the rest of the page". Expecting people to read what Carbine wrote and come away with any thought other than keys would be dropped is an exercise in fantasy. They really, really blew it with this thing. The criticism is earned, and Carbine would do well to heed it. | |} ---- Nope, it's intrinsically bad. The dungeon lockboxes get a pass because they really do feel like an additional thing you can easily ignore. But when you get awarded something for playing the game and they only way to use it is tied to real money, nope- that's bad. Especially if you are already paying a freaking sub. It's offensive and it makes me not want to play the game. It's a good thing for me that this is tied to something I couldn't care less about. If this was tied to raids, I'd be raising a lot of strong language. So hopefully Carbine understands that. I'm paying good money to play this game. I've already spent hundreds of dollars on this game. Don't try to squeeze more out of me to enjoy virtual items that I received for performing virtual tasks in a freaking video game. grrrrr :angry: | |} ---- Sorry Jeff but I disagree. The number of people coming to the same conclusion ~on the forums~ is not representative of the playerbase as a whole, as you should know. I already noted yesterday that while maybe 30-40 people came here with the intent to criticize, I had over 150 people next to me farming pretty much all day yesterday— who were obviously not greatly bothered by what happened. And I read almost no criticism of the event/wording in-game. Over 2.5 hours of WB training I saw two people leave over it and two people say it was stupid, and that was that. That's just my experience but it contrasts quite vividly with the idea that TONS of people came to the same conclusion. I personally didn't come to any conclusion. I saw ambiguity in the main post, I asked for clarification, and I got clarification. Others did as well on that first page. How is my expectation therefore a fantasy when it's evident, before your eyes, as a reality? If many people failed to see that ambiguity existed or decided not to ask for/follow up on clarification, I'm sorry, but I can't blame Carbine entirely for what comes of that build-up to disappointment. Reading comprehension is as important as clear expression. | |} ---- You should be raising strong insights rather than strong language. :P I've also spent hundreds of dollars on Wildstar, upwards of about 500 now. It entitles me to nothing and the same goes for everyone else, as far as I see it. This isn't about the individual and any attempt to make it about the individual is probably useless. We're trying to keep a game alive that requires a lot of people to give a lot of moneys. Also gotta say, I don't understand this at all: This seems like such a contradiction. The dungeon/adventure lockboxes are OK because ~you~ feel it's easily ignored, but the Shiny Tokens aren't easily ignored? How does that figure? I really need to see some justification for such a claim because right now it doesn't hold any weight for me. In the case of the dungeon/adventures we had no booster that amplified or optimized the experience. It was just, hey, if you're running this thing then you can pay money for extra reward, and the chest was being given to the players directly (which I argue is actually harder to ignore than getting tokens you need to bring somewhere else to get a chest). In the case of the WB event we have a booster that greatly speeds up farming, thus dumping more rewards from the WB normal loot table + giving extra glory. This is a big incentive that, to me, makes it actually much easier to ignore the tokens— easier than it was to ignore the chest dropped at the end of what was a 20ish minute farm, compared to the 2-5ish minute farm of a WB kill. | |} ---- Explained really simple: You do the dungeon for the sake of the dungeon, not to open the box at the end of the dungeon. As stated it's extra. We are doing the event for the sake of the event, extra fun/content/rewards. Except we need to pay to actually see ANY reward.If we were killing world bosses for the sake of killing world bosses, we wouldn't need/care about the event However the event interferes with our normal world boss routine now because everyone wants that token according Carbine/Event/Twitter So it comes down to being forced to pay money to actually have something on the event vs freely spending money for something extra. | |} ---- Two things really. Primarily they were not a highlighted feature of the event. Less important but even more embarrassing those boxes are guaranteed to yield a few things with value. The WB boxes are returning complete junk roughly 9 times out of 10 (based on anecdotal reports). | |} ---- I don't know about "entitlement". I paid a fair price for the game, and for them to come back and try to manipulate me into pay more makes it feel like they do not respect my support of the game. Asking for more would be one thing. Upping the price would be fine (I'd even pay it). Trying to encourage me to spend money by tying content rewards to real money? Gross. Manipulative. Undeserved. Dungeons are rewarding plenty on their own without messing with the lockboxes. The lockboxes are not stuck into your inventory as a "reward". Dungeon lockboxes have not been advertised a centeral feature to running dungeons. And yes, it matters. If the world bosses ended up with a lockbox around them after the kill that you could open up, rather than something awarded into your inventory, this would have a different feel. If I started running dungeons and lockboxes started getting put in my inventory as "rewards", I'd be pretty upset by that. I guess we're just different. Because it's a lot easier for me to ignore something lying on the ground than it is something that is stuck in my inventory. The latter feels like a reward for the content, whereas the former seems like something I can just leave be. | |} ---- Of course people would. And I would definitely be done with the game if that happened. | |} ---- I completely agree that they failed in highlighting this event with the Shiny Tokens. Absolutely. But I don't think that directly relates to the reward design of the event, which is more what Jeff (seems) to be talking about— and was definitely what i was talking about. I'm not sure I agree with your anecdotal evidence though, because it seems most people are drawing from the same anecdote (the OP of this thread). In my case, I got a Lopp Hunter first box I opened... how's that for an anecdote? Should I go around claiming that the drop rate is quite good for cool loot? | |} ---- ---- See that's a problem. The people managing these F2P systems are not looking at Jeff and saying "man he spent a lot, let's be sure to respect him". They're looking at soulless numbers, which is what money amounts to in the end. I think it's erroneous and unfair for you to frame this situation as something where the individual's support level can reasonably come into play. It can't (although I'm curious to hear an argument that it can, with points). Purely subjective remark with no evidence to support it... come on man. I can easily claim that WB are rewarding plenty on their own without messing with lockboxes, so what's the point of this? Agreed, they weren't advertised as a primary aspect and I've already criticized Carbine for that + noted it again in a recent post this morning. I agree that it's easier to ignore something not in your inventory, though this point seems weak to me as a main argument. In both cases (WB/instance farming) you're getting pretty much equivalent rewards for the time spent. And if you don't think the time investment difference has relevance (you seem to have ignored it completey) then I dunno. Yea, I guess we're just different. | |} ---- From my point of view this is a weak comparison. A raid requires a ton more dedication, organization, skill, patience, and time investment than a 2-5 minute brainless, fluffy WB kill. I can't endorse this as a valid way of presenting the situation. They're totally apples and oranges. | |} ---- ---- ---- ---- Thinks RNG is bullshit, yet he still bought thirty nine keys. In another words, he pretty much validates their stance to keep the RNG boxes. | |} ---- Yeah, exactly. It's that kind of ignorance that will assure that gamble boxes take over Nexus. Well done. Ugh. | |} ---- Dude, no company respects you, though they likely don't have a lack of respect either. This isn't a situation about respect. I don't understand your thought process here. The company is trying to make a fun game that is lucrative, those are the key points of development... You could easily fund a company that doesn't give two shits about you as a person or consumer, without even knowing it. Actually, I've reached agreement on a few points with some of the posters here. And I do take it as petty that you'd describe my arguments as representing belief in my own objectivity. I will argue in such a way that I have complete confidence in my points because I often do until they're disproven. There's nothing wrong with that and it's generally how debate works. Confidence and sticking to your guns does not automatically correlate to extreme hubris. Also, the VAST VAST VAST majority of people in-game seem to have no problem with this event and I saw little evidence that they greatly misunderstood the key situation as a mass. So are they completely written off here, Tex? Or do you believe that the number of people posting negative comments on the forum should indicate truthfulness/value? Also, I didn't actually understand Carbine's intention with their Monster Hunter OP, which I have ~already pointed out several times~. I saw ambiguity, ~as did others~, and asked for clarification which was given. So stop making me look like I think of myself as a perfect human. Your comments here are turning into the shitty form of argument I have zero respect for. You're not making clear points you're being sly and ironic. And what makes this worse is that you, Tex, are FREQUENTLY commenting on the negativity of these forums until it's ~your time~ to be negative. Just last week I saw you making points about other posters. So let's not go down this shitty path. I'm arguing against a majority which includes many people I respect, and that's fine. But I'll thank you not to use the weight of that majority as an indication I'm wrong, when no other meaty point is provided in your post. | |} ---- ---- ---- That's extremely true, but you know how they would manage it? By tricking the customers into thinking that the company respects them. That, or being the only company providing that particular service. So it turns out that respect is actually very important. Or, if you want, the appareance of respect. | |} ---- While I agree that respect is important, I think you'd have to give some clear examples of how a company 'tricks' a consumer into thinking respect is there. When I make a purchase (usually doesn't matter what, but especially with games and ~especially~ with digitial games) I don't even think about respect, let alone feel that I'm respected. It's a pretty mechanical relationship that generally involves picking up an object, placing it on a counter, and paying for it. :P I mean, I certainly don't feel like the entertainment industry "respects" me when prices on digital distribution games are just as high as hard copies. Are we only paying for IP now? And if so, with the millions (billions?) of gamers buying, is the pricetag reasonable? This type of thing doesn't upset me or diminish my appetite for games, but respect is probably the farthest thing from my mind when I think of game companies. | |} ---- Of course they do. What kind of dim view of the world do you have where it is filled with sociopaths who just exploit others as much as they can? I've worked for many companies in my life, and every one has been respectful to our customers. We appreciate their money, we try to give them what they value, and we try to do right by them. Sure, there are companies out there that try to exploit people without regard for their well being, but in general it shows in the end. It absolutely matters here. If I don't feel respected as a customer, I'll find other things to do with my time and money. Edited January 8, 2016 by SlyJeff | |} ---- ---- They're the entire purpose of this event. Dungeon lockboxes are a side thought at best when you complete an instance. I don't pay attention to them at all. But this is an event that Carbine advertised and theoretically wants people to participate in. Except in order to actually get anything out of it, you have to drop money. It's gross. I may take advantage of the world boss trains this weekend, but I am going to be vehemently deleting every single shiny token that lands in my inventory. I will not give this event a single cent. | |} ---- ---- ---- But the boxed goods not the only thing you get out of the event. Depending on what you need (on mains or alts), you get: - Tons more people participating in WB trains due to less particles required. People generally are too lazy to farm particles. Don't flame, it's a fact. - Easy Glory farm with minimal effort & NO ITEM LEVEL REQUIREMENT :lol: - More WB genocide = more loot drop per hour (especially when multiply by the amount of people Exile participating) - Level 47+ players get to leach fast XP, in return they summon peope to bosses (if they are kind enough to roll scientist) ..... Now, if all you need is the dye or mount or toy, then yea, this event does nothing for you. Just like any other Wed-Thur-Fri. | |} ---- ---- Well you left out a pretty critical part of what I wrote, Jeff: My 'dim view of the world' is not so dim, I would describe it as reaslim but then that's a completely subjective concept as well. But yea, I don't believe companies actively respect people (at least, ~in the context of our discussion~, not as ~individuals~, which was your premise as I understood it). But that doesn't mean they intend to prey on them as objectified victims, either. In my experience the business world and incorporation necessitate a certain distance from the idea of 'respect'. It's usually more about following consumer protection guidelines and ensuring the stakeholders or owners are compensated for their investment. That doesn't mean there can't be dignity involved on both sides... but again, within the context of our discussion, I still don't see how you expect respect as an individual. I gotta jet for a bit but thanks for the back and forth. I'm sure I'll read any reply later. | |} ---- They got the location in Thayd wrong, the name of the event person wrong, and the reward exchange wrong. I'm not normally this harsh on it, but whoever was in charge of QC on this event needs to be fired.(adding on later)Since I happened to have the keys and tokens, I decided to see what I'd get: Service tokens and a common dye. That's not just upsetting, it's insulting. Good job, Wildstar - you've just about turned the loyalties of this paying customer to absolute zero in two events. Wanna go 3/3? Edited January 8, 2016 by Snicker | |} ---- Wait... Really? I'ma go take a look because I've been boycotting so hard I hadn't even looked at the vendor. But, wow. Yeah, agreed on the last point, what a massive drop of the ball. | |} ---- ---- I didn't say anything about individuals. The point is, you treat people with respect (or dignity as you later point out). I don't expect Carbine to know me by name or think about my personal situation, but I do expect them to think about the types of people who play their game and what respect toward them looks like. And that is, people who have long supported the game, and continue to support the game, should not be the target of manipulative practices to extract even more cash. And I very much see tying in game rewards to the cash shop as doing exactly that. I've groand through the rune thing, only because I generate enough omnibits with my style of play to handle all of my runing through them. Thank goodness I don't care about decore or anything else. But they've been pushing it. When they decide that my sub is not enough and try to squeeze me too much, they won't get the money. They'll just lose what I have been spending. They better be glad I don't care about world bosses or the drop boxes. But they should beware of targeting something I *do* care about. | |} ---- Company size plays a role here. Whilst there's good and bad businesses at all ends of the spectrum it's broadly true that the larger the company or corporation, the more detached it it is from its customers and the less likely it is to treat customers as valued individuals. Mostly for obvious reasons of scale but also call centre business culture and shareholder greed doesn't help either. Most small and medium sized businesses could never survive long without a healthy respect for their customers, good communication and support. And of course, providing a product or service which is simultaneously beneficial for the customer and profitable for the company (these usually go hand in hand). Interesting you mention consumer protection guidelines because this is a big part of the problem with the MMO industry at the moment. There's no real regulation or consumer protection. RNG boxes and all the other F2P monetization methods are not really protected by consumer law in any substantial way. For example, how do you prove that a random item that should drop from a RNG box actually has a realistic chance of dropping? Are the odds a 1% or 0.0001%? There's no published odds, no auditing and who would you complain to anyway if you think it's a scam? Personally I feel it would be a good thing if the MMO industry shrank back to what it once was pre-WoW, with games designed and operated by smaller, often independent studios who put gaming first. They were in it to make money too of course, but the philosophy was to build a good game and then players will come and you'll make money. The opposite approach now seems to be true, chuck the game together without much care for playability or bugs, sling it out for free, monetize it heavily and don't worry too much about if anyone is having fun because you can just rely on churning the suckers through the system. But if they keep it up they're going to run out of suckers eventually. But probably not before there's a lot of rather rich shareholders. The biggest fallacy in all this is that players are "helping the game" by supporting poorly implemented F2P monetization schemes like RNG boxes and similar. | |} ----